Drowning
by Starlit Skyline
Summary: Tanuma had a nightmare – but he fears that in time, his nightmare might become reality.


**AN: I know I should be working on my other multi-chapter story, but I kinda have a mild writer's block when it comes to the next chapter - and this little idea just popped up in my head - remember when Tanuma said he had a nightmare about Natsume dying? That's where I got my idea from - so here we go. Hope you enjoy!**

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Drown

_Pale moonlight streamed though the midnight colored leaves. The leaves rustled with an unseen wind, abnormally chilly on his skin. It was a quiet night – so quiet even his breathing seemed muted to his ears. The clearing was painted in dark, murky hues and the only light came from the odd glitters in the branches overhead. He couldn't see the sky, even if the leaves parted and trees stood apart to allow him a clear view._

_Surrounded by trees, his eyes tracked the reflected light. The bright specks hung among the brought like stars. The light rippled, disappeared, reappeared and then vanished again – as though hiding from him. Strangely, he was both curious and wary – and yet had the distinct feeling he did not belong._

_Then the screams broke out into the night._

_It was like the previous calm had shattered along with the quiet. The cold breeze picked up again, stronger and more biting than before. It raced passed him, pushed him from side to side, like he'd suddenly been flung into an invisible crowd. His vision was shadowed and blurred, and things started to appear in his vision that hadn't been there moments ago._

"_You want to see, don't you?"_

_Shadows and blobs filtered in and out of the moonlight, the small specks of light in the leaves now resembling predatory eyes. The screaming got louder, putting him on edge, calling to him._

_A pit had opened before his feet. It looked unnatural to his eyes for some reason. The water in the pit was too calm and too clear __– reminding him dimly of a frozen lake __–_ and deformed shapes that could scarcely be classified as fish darted about. Even with the crystal-clear clarity of the water, he could not see what was happening beneath the surface.

_Abruptly, the inhuman screeching stopped and the quasi-calm overtook the world again. The shadows and blurs danced a strange dance, fading with the night._

_A hand broke the surface of the water. It reached out blindly as he watched, and stunned he crept forward, to the very edge of the pond. When he looked within it's clear, illusive depths, he's breath hitched in the same moment he felt his heart stop._

"NATSUME!"

He woke up to the sound of his own screams. Wide-eyed and drenched in a cold sweat, Tanuma sat up in bed. He found it hard to breathe. The bed-sheets clung to him uncomfortably. He felt light-headed and heavy at the same time.

His breathing still labored and his mind still trapped in slumber, his pupils darted around frantically. His eyes still gazed at Natsume's wide, lifeless orbs. The sight was burned into his skull like some sick distortion of a portrait.

Natsume's usually warm, titian eyes were frightened, pleading and half-lidded – as if any moment they would slip closed. His expression was dazed, but that wasn't what had caught Tanuma's attention. It was the dark bruises and cuts clustered and smeared all over Natsume's skin. His face, his arms and probably everywhere else Tanuma couldn't see.

His mouth had been half open, like he was about to speak – completely uncaring or unaware of the water seeping in. The light was dim in his eyes, his hand slipping back under the glass surface of the pond. So still and so precise, yet murky enough to hide Natsume from him. He reached blindly into the still water, but Natsume had already disappeared, like some unseen monster had swallowed him whole–

_No,_ _it was just a dream,_ Tanuma told himself,_ just a nightmare._ It held no sway over reality.

Somehow, that thought made dread pool in his stomach like liquid lead.

* * *

Tanuma spent the reminder of the night awake. He hadn't even tried to lay down again, at least not in his futon, sweat-drenched as it was. He'd curled into himself on the sheets, bringing his knees up to his face. It was then that he realized his face was wet as a few stray tears landed on his knee-caps.

He'd wiped them off furiously and stumbled to the kitchen. He'd never been as thankful as he was now that his father was away on business. He drank a glass of water, then promptly ducked him head under the running water of the sink.

There, at least now he felt lucid.

His mind had been so full of cobwebs he's found himself jumping at every shadow in the hallway. There were no ghosts around to chase him now though. At this point, a sliver of light caught his eye and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The pond. His feet felt like lead while he dragged them to the shoji door, feeling oddly numb and anxious. There was no water to be seen once the door was open, but the reflection still rippled across every surface it could touch. On the paper door, the ceiling, the floorboards, the grass and the leaves – like beady little eyes watching his every move.

He shivered, but his eyes still kept searching – half hoping there was nothing there, half knowing that there was yet unwilling to see. For the first time he didn't want to see. He wanted to delude himself that there was nothing there. The youkai weren't there. The ghost pond in his yard wasn't there. Natsume wasn't there. Natsume wasn't drowning. Natsume certainly wasn't _dead_.

But still the fear haunted every fiber of his being, still the shadows ebbed at the recesses of his sight mockingly and still he couldn't convince himself that his dream had not been a reality.

Reluctantly, he plunked down on the porch and joined the many eyes watching the unseen.

He stayed there until sunrise.

* * *

"Oi! Natsume!" The moment he saw him, Tanuma called out. Fear and irrational guilt had gnawed at him for hours on end, so seeing his friend's familiar face on the way to school was an immense relief. Over the course of last night, he'd wanted to call the Fujiwara residence, sprint there as fast as he could and/or tie Natsume to a chair to make sure he didn't get into the trouble that he was wont to.

He doubted his friend would appreciate it in three in the morning though. Still, he had taken a long route to school just so he could pass by Natsume's house. He wasn't being paranoid, exactly, just worried for his friend. He was probably worrying over nothing, but what if..._  
_

Natsume's voice broke through his dazed mind before he could finish that particular train of thought. "Ah, Tanuma. Good morning." Natsume greeted with a smile and a warm glint in his titian orbs.

Tanuma suppressed a shiver as he remembered their half-open, pleading stare. "Good morning." he echoed.

The frown creased Natsume's brow "Are you alright? You seem tired." he asked.

"Uh, yeah, yeah, just... didn't sleep well." It was true, after all, he just... didn't want to tell Natsume why. But Natsume being Natsume had already made his own assumption.

"Youkai?" he questioned worriedly.

Tanuma shook his head, hoping he didn't seem as nervous as he felt. "Eh, no, no. Not exactly."

"Tanuma." Natsume's tone held a bit of warning – the "tell-me-what's-going-on-before-you-get-hurt" kind of tone he used when he was planning to do something especially stupid and reckless for someone else's sake – and stared resolutely at him, while Tanuma looked everywhere but him. He really was no good at this.

His shoulders slumped in defeat and a sigh falling from his lips, Tanuma let his thoughts be taken over by more morose, more frightening aspects of his friendship with Natsume Takashi.

"Hey, Natsume." he said after a while. His short strands fell into his face, masking his eyes. "What do you do, when you have a bad dream... that you just can't wake up from?" He peered at his friend just as hesitantly as he'd asked, and the look on Natsume's face made something twist inside him.

The boy in front of him look terrified – for what reason, Kaname was unsure – but he found himself desperately wanting to wipe that horrid expression from his friend's face.

"It's just that," he began, his voice faltering "I had a really bad dread yesterday, and when I woke I kept thinking it was going to happen for real. Like the dream wasn't a dream at all... like a nightmare I just couldn't wake up from..." Natsume's face had gone steadily pale with every word Tanuma had uttered and the older boy noted that he was trembling slightly. It made Kaname want to stop, but something drove him on. "Do you... ever feel that way?" He truly did fear the answer. "How do you wake up?"

Natsume opened him mouth _– _his expression still slightly panicked and pained _–_ but before he could speak he swayed to one side and quickly caught himself. A moment later, Ponta came to sit on Natsume's right shoulder. The haggard expression on Natsume's face softened a little at the cat's sudden arrival.

When he answered his voice sounded distant, almost as if he were talking to himself. "I reassure myself that it can't hurt me anymore." All the while his fingers threaded through Ponta's short fur.

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**Yeah, short, I know. But, anyway - Please review!**


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